


Spotlight

by Jinmukang



Series: Whumptober 2020 [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Cages, Dark, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Non-Consensual Groping, Non-Consensual Touching, Partial Nudity, Restraints, Torture, Unhappy Ending, Whump, Whumptober 2020, but a consensual hug that he agreed to..., no.4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:01:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26807779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinmukang/pseuds/Jinmukang
Summary: Suddenly, the hood over his face is ripped off and Dick cringes at the harsh light shining in his face. There's vague, dark figures standing behind the lights. But that's not what catches Dick's attention.It's the cameras pointed directly at him.Dick is here. Hanging in chains, weak as a newborn fawn, close to a panic attack.At the center of attention.In the spotlight.A place he was born to be in, but it all feels so very vile now.
Series: Whumptober 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946413
Comments: 26
Kudos: 108
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Spotlight

**Author's Note:**

> Day four!!!
> 
> Thank you all for all the support you've all given me throughout the week so far, it means the world!
> 
> So, this fic is probably the second most of the darkest ones ive written this month SO FAR. Please read the warnings and keep them in mind. Also know that this fic ends unresolved with no happy ending, so if major whump, with borderline sexual themes (Though there is NO NON-CON SEX in this fic) that doesn't end happily isn't your thing, then turn away now. You have been warned.

Dick's… hungry. And cold. And scared. 

His back aches from the small space he's trapped in and he hasn't known the feeling of being without pain and anxiety for what must be… days now. A week. Maybe more? He doesn't know. Time doesn't agree with dark rooms with no windows.

A dog crate. He's in a dog crate. All small wiring bars with little space between, barely wide enough to poke his fingers through. Not that he wants to. Last time he stuck his fingers out in an attempt to pick at the bars, one of his abductors saw him and kicked at the cage, practically bruising his joints to the point they swelled and smarted beneath the gloves of his suit for hours.

And he keeps forgetting about that—the suit. Being Nightwing in a place like this. Ever since he's ended up here, they haven't taken anything from him besides the stuff in his utility pockets and his escrima sticks. Otherwise, he's still in full costume. Gloves, boots, mask and all. Trapped in a dog crate like a wild animal to be taunted and jeered at. 

He's tired. And stressed. And confused. None of the people paasy by the bars on the other side of the cage talk to him. Even when he shouts at them to answer and explain his purpose here. They just open the door with taser guns aimed, give him food and water, occasionally drag him out to relieve the pressure in his bowels into a bucket, then lock him back in. 

It's embarrassing and horrible and cruel and he wishes they'd just _explain_ why.

He's alone most of the time. Shoved into the middle of a locked room with no one besides himself to keep company. He's pretty sure he's going to go insane any moment now. It makes him wonder if this is why Bane went crazy. If this is why criminals that go into Arkham sometimes come out more psychotic. If this is why Bruce took in an eight year old and gave him a cape to fight crime in.

Isolation. It's suffocating. More than the cage will ever be. 

Or well, perhaps they're the same. Either way, Dick hates it and he wishes he was out of here and _home_. Swaddled in a blanket, cuddling with someone, binging an episode to some trash reality tv show and making fun of every stupid character. He wants Alfred's cooking. He wants his friends. He wants his family. He wants to stretch out and spread his limbs, look up to the ceiling and enjoy the sun shining through the windows down onto him. 

He hates this. 

He shifts in the cage, his body is curled up in a way that his back is up against a wall and his feet are pressing against the opposite side; his knees are bent almost to touch his stomach and his neck is lowered uncomfortably because the short ceiling doesn't allow him to straighten his posture. The cage he's in is hardly fit for a large dog. Putting Titus and Ace in here would be animal abuse. 

There's not much to do here besides curl up and shift and tap his fingers against his thighs. He keeps quiet though. He doesn't want to repeat the beating he got last time he was overheard singing to himself. 

He taps his fingers. His toes. Shifts. Repeats. 

Boredom and isolation goes hand in hand, and he's not very good at either of them. Normally, by this point, where he's beginning to stare at nothing and think about things that are more comfortable than this, he'd look at the bars of the cage and force himself to count them. 

But he already knows the number of the bars now. 96 going vertical, four going horizontal, wrapping around the walls of the cage—and on the ceiling, the 96 vertical bend to criss-cross each other, making a fun 28 by 20 graph above him. 

Maybe… he should just sleep. Because otherwise, his eyes will drift over to the padlock holding the cage shut and he'll be filled with hopelessness almost immediately. If he had the right tools, he could easily pick it. But all he has are the clothes on his body. Nothing else. Everything else is gone. 

He shifts. Taps his fingers on his legs.

Yeah. Yeah he should sleep. 

He doesn't bother trying to move around the small cage to position himself laying down like he used to. He's found that it's more work than it's worth, especially when he's so tired all the time now. There's also the fact that if he does curl up on the floor, multiple sections of his body will be pressed against the walls, vulnerable for asshole kidnappers to poke their fingers through the bars and touch him like he's just something to look at and mess with. Barely human. 

He closes his eyes, tapping the meat of his thigh to a made up rhythm in his head until sleep finally comes. 

Though, it's nothing close to peaceful.

-o-o-o-o-

The circumstances of his capture are nothing spectacular. He was simply patrolling the 'Haven when he suddenly felt something pinch into the bare skin of his neck. He went down hard in some alleyway, rolling into suspiciously rancid smelling puddles and shaky arms desperately trying to heft himself back to his feet. The last thing he remembers before the tranquilizer did its job and knocked him out were the sounds of multiple approaching figures.

The problem with this is that he was alone that night. He wasn't working with anyone. He hadn't talked with anyone. He didn't have plans with anyone. The only way someone will notice that he's gone is if they decide they want to talk with him and call him. Or if Dick's boss gets suspicious of where he is and decides to call someone for information.

They'll go to Dick's city when they do find out though. They'll look for him. Find him missing. Find no evidence left behind to where he could have gone. 

Dick likes to hope that they'll be a mad scramble to find him when they realize he didn't leave on his own will. All hands on deck. They'll search the entire city for every lead they can grab. Then, once a hopeless amount of time passes, Bruce would call in the Justice League. Superman will listen for his heartbeat. Zitanna will search the area for magical residue. They'll use every piece of piece of equipment they can get their hands on, and then…

They'll stop. 

Because there's nowhere to go. Dick is sure of it. These people? They're professionals. They've done this before. Dick can tell. People go missing all the time and never show up again, even if they went missing in the middle of a crowded place with a billion cameras watching. 

Dick went missing in some random alleyway. Some random alleyway that had no cameras because Blüdhaven doesn't believe in surveillance. Most traffic light cameras are spray painted over and the police are too lazy to clean and replace them. The only buildings that have working security cameras are stores owned by various mob bosses. 

It's been so, so long since Dick's been captured, and if no one has come yet, then he knows they met a dead end, and they won't come unless the kidnappers slip up from here on out. 

All he can do is sit in the cage and hope something changes soon.

-o-o-o-o-

Something has changed. 

The change came with a group of four men, each masked with gatercloths like they always are. Normally, if it's just food or a bathroom break, it would only be two people. 

But this is four, and Dick can't help but think that while the thought of something finally being different from the drawl that has been his life for the past maybe week or two is exciting, he also doesn't think he's going to like this change very much. 

Dick brings his knees to his chest so his feet aren't right against the door to his cage. _The_ cage. Not his. It's not his. He watches warily as they approach, trying to keep a brave face. It's been slipping the more time that goes by. The more time these people treat him like he's nothing but something to keep barely alive. 

Two of them brandish their taser guns while another bends down to stick a key into the padlock keeping Dick in here. The door opens and normally… normally Dick would slowly get out on his own willpower to avoid any unnecessary beatings and because the cage is awful and horrible and just the _worst_ , but something is different. Something is going to happen. He doesn't know if he wants to walk willingly towards it. 

"What's going on?" Dick asks, knowing they won't answer. His voice is scratchy and raw and weak. He doesn't sound like himself anymore. 

The man that opened the door grunts and rolls his eyes, reaching his meaty fist inside the cage to grab Dick by the hair. Immediately, instincts beg to take over. He wants to grab his hand, break the wrist, kick out and knock him over. But Dick's also been tasered by those guns of theirs before. It's not pleasant, and he'll just end up feeling like complete shit for the next six hours.

So he lets the man drag him out by his hair. His legs shake with his own weight, his body left weak from the lack of a full meal and from the lack of exercise, but gods, it feels good to stand. The men not aiming the guns at him grab one arm each, practically supporting his weight between them. 

Then, his vision becomes limited. 

Someone put a bag on his head. One that smells like starch and dusty potatoes. He tenses and tugs on the grips on his arms without thinking about it. He doesn't… like this one bit. They've taken his freedom. His weapons. His mobility. They can't take his sight too. They can't!

His heart flutters in panic when the men holding him with iron fists begin to drag him forward. There's a click of a door opening and closing, the texture of cement turning into short, bristley carpet, and the feeling of a small room becoming an endless hallway. 

They've taken him out of his- the cage and out of the room. 

He tries to keep step with the men, but his legs are shaky and weak, and he ends up stumbling to the point the back of his head is smacked every time he slows them down. He desperately needs to know what's going on. Where they're taking him. What they're going to do to him.

There's so much they can do to him. 

Something clogs in his throat. Something that tastes like panic and feels like a heart attack. He digs his heels into the ground, tensing his arms and trying to figure out what the hell is going on. 

"Where are you taking me?!"

Another smack to his head. His arms are tugged and a meaty arm wraps around his back, dragging him forward. 

They aren't answering him. Why aren't they answering him?!

"Stop-" he pants, his chest constricting. He can't believe it himself, but he'd rather be back in the cage than walking down this unknown hallway with unknown plans for him. "Stop!"

They don't listen. They don't talk. They just continue to drag him on and on and on until they finally hault. 

Dick pants. He can't help it. His anxiety is through the roof. He clenches his fists as the sound of a doorknob turning reaches his ears through the hood. There's the creek of a door swinging open, and soon enough he finds himself lead inside a new room. 

One with more people inside of it. He can tell by the murmurings and shuffling of bodies; wrinkles of clothes constructing and rustling with every movement. His wrists are grabbed suddenly and he flinches, trying to free his limbs, but it's useless. There's a bone deep exhaustion that resides within him, making his muscles feel like jelly. Making him powerless to do much more than struggle weakly as his hands are forced above his head. There's a clinking of chains, and next thing Dick knows his arms have been shackled above his head, keeping him standing in place even as the two men holding him have let go and back away.

Dick begins to count numbers in his head. Elements. Colors. Names. Anything to stop him from hyperventilating. The threat of full-on panicking is there, sitting right in his esophagus like a snake ready to strike. It's all he can do to swallow down each heaving gasp that threatens to tear out of his mouth. All he can do to clench his fists above his head, find his feet below him, and pretend that he's just as headstrong and confident as he was when he first ended up here.

He tests the chains above him, making them rattle, and he prepares himself for whatever these people have planned for him. He has a feeling that something important is finally happening. Something this all has been leading up to. 

Suddenly, the hood over his face is ripped off and Dick cringes at the harsh light shining in his face. There's vague, dark figures standing behind the lights. But that's not what catches Dick's attention. 

It's the cameras pointed directly at him.

Dick is here. Hanging in chains, weak as a newborn fawn, close to a panic attack. 

At the center of attention. 

In the spotlight. 

A place he was born to be in, but it all feels so very vile now. He'd much prefer to crawl into a dark corner rather than hang here, in the lights, in front of _cameras_. 

He swallows. Forces his face into something calm, cool, and collected as a man steps in front of the cameras. Dick's stomach twists at the appearance of the man; he's well muscled, tall, dressed in a fancy suit and dress shoes, completed with a red bow tie framing his bottom jaw. 

His face is covered in a full, rubber mask that wraps around the face. It's animal themed, looking something like a beaver. Small circles cut through where the eyes go, but the light is too intense for Dick to see beyond the shadows in the eye sockets. 

All Dick can see is a soulless smile on the face of a cartoon-ish animal that shouldn't look as freaky as it does. 

"Welcome," the man says to the cameras, his voice sounding robotic and fake. He must have some sort of voice manipulator beneath the rubber. "We know you all have been waiting patiently for this live stream session, so I will not bore you all with dramatics. Let's begin on the show, shall we? Why don't we start small. Bloodless."

Livestream? Show? What the hell is going on?! 

The man pulls out a phone, and Dick just manages to catch sight of a screen practically overflowing with words, rocketing each section of text upwards one by one until the man stops his thumb on a section of words. 

"First will be removal of the suit for &300." 

Dick startles in his binds, his eyes widening as the realization of what's happening to him hits him at full speed. Torture. This is a torture broadcast. People are… paying for things to be done to Dick. 

His stomach flips when two other people, dressed similarly in nice suits and creepy animal themed masks approach, knives in their hands. 

Removal of suit. They're going to… to strip him. Someone spent three hundred dollars to strip Dick-

And he wants to flinch. Fight. Yell at them to leave him the fuck alone. But this isn't him trapped in a cage, alone in a room. This isn't him being dragged between captors to the toilet. This is him, hanging by his wrists, in front of a live audience who wants to see him hurt. Who wants to see him afraid. He's not sure how much of a brave face he has left after the long amount of time he's spent trapped here, but he puts it on. Clenching his fists and staring right at the main announcer with a glare as the two others find the zipper to his suit and drag it down. Once it's all the way down to the middle of his back, they take their knives and begin cutting through the sleeves of his suit. The knives must be extremely strong and sharp, but they're careful to not cut skin. 

It must be because if they're going to cut skin and draw blood, they want to be paid for it first. 

With a little bit of rough tugging, Dick's left shivering in nothing but his underwear and mask. He clenches his jaw and hopes no one can see just how hard his heart is pounding.

Exposed. Practically naked. One of the abductors who cut off his suit smacks his ass before they leave back to the shadows, and he barely manages to not jump and cry out in discomfort. He hates this. He wants all of this to stop. He feels like a stolen piece of art, placed in front of a foreign museum and left for people to vandalize like he belongs to them. 

He wishes he could shatter and crumble right there. Let it end before it can begin. He's so tired, and he feels so weak, and the shackles on his wrists pinch like fire ants. 

They leave him standing there, for a moment, letting the moment settle in that Nightwing has been reduced to boxers. Someone comes up with a handheld camera, moving around Dick and zooming in at various places of his body that makes him want to curl up and die. 

Someone else catcalls—makes a comment about Dick's _attractiveness_. 

Don't look at him. Don't touch him. He doesn't want this. His lip wobbles and he bites on it, mentally cursing himself.

Maybe this is why they literally and metaphorically kept him in the dark for so long. To tear down his emotional walls before they get to the torture. He's been on the verge of tears for what must be days now. 

And he knows that if it goes much further than this… humiliation at standing mostly naked and being touched and looked at in ways that makes his skin crawl… he might just cry. 

Finally, after a horrible amount of time, the camera man leaves. The boss clears his throat and looks to the camera. "Now, because I see many requests being sent through to remove the mask, I will say that the option to do so is off the table for the time being. Remember, there will be four sessions throughout the next four days. No blood, blood, trauma, and private. The fourth session will be for our top payers, special invites, and our most loyal customers. The removal of the mask will be for sale in the private session. Now, enough of that, let's move on. We have a request for a battery for $250. An added bonus of $50 if the escrima sticks are used without electricity."

Dick tenses in place, feeling so tight like he might snap like a violin's string. The people who stripped him approach again, holding his own escrima sticks like police batons. Dick squares his jaw and squeezes his clenched fists, feeling his nails dig crescent moons into his skin. He can do this. He can withstand a beating. No problem. He's been on the receiving end of brutality since the first year he wore a mask and cape. 

He can do this. 

It still doesn't stop the first hit to his side from feeling like a final nail in the coffin.

-o-o-o-o-

They toss him back into the cage hours later—beaten black and blue to match his now missing suit—in nothing but his underwear and mask, and feeling like he went toe to toe with Harley Quinn's hammer. But it was a sentient Harley Quinn's hammer that knew exactly where to hit to cause high pain and low damage. Every hit was calculated. Planned. Expertly placed to knock the wind from his lungs or cause him to go light-headed, yet no bones were broken. 

And then… there was the touching. The groping and grinding. People paid money for his hair to be tugged, for his ass to be squeezed, for hands to trail down his sides and curl at all the wrong places that have him close to writhing. 

They knew exactly where to hit and touch to get him on the verge of gasps and whimpers. 

When he accidentally made a noise when he was surprised by one of the men pinching his nipple… the bids came in like wildfire. 

He feels used. Violated. Swollen. Like his skin is too tight, stretching around one giant bruise that makes it so he wants to just lay there where they've disposed of him in the cage. Curled up, limbs awkwardly bent, bag still over his head from the transfer through the hallway. 

He bites his lip, trying to find the energy to move or check over his wounds or take off the bag, but he doesn't do a thing. 

He just lays there like a broken dog. Obediently waiting for punishment. Silently waiting for rescue to come. 

And thinking rescue might not come at all. 

Dick wraps his arms around his middle, a lump forming at the back of his throat and pressure building behind his eyes. He's yelled, gasped, grunted, hell… even involuntarily _moaned_ at the hands of these people. But he hasn't cried.

Not yet. He can't cry yet. 

He feels his eyes moisten behind the mask and he blinks desperately. 

The tears don't stop forming. Warm liquid drips from his lashes and squeeze under the loose parts of the gum keeping his mask to his face. He continues to hold them back to the best of his abilities, or at least tether down all signs of sobs, and the teardrops that fall he ignores. 

They'll be dried up by the time they come back again anyway. 

They'll be long gone before anyone finds him. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Kudos, bookmarks, and COMMENTS are much wanted and appreciated. every comment i get will be exchanged to the whump gods for Dick to finally get a hug.


End file.
